Since 2010, the EOA (formerly MAEOPP) National Best Practices Center has been your online program manual for best practices to improve success of low-income, first-generation college, and historically-underrepresented students involved in TRIO and GEAR UP programs. We are the first group of federally-funded programs to create our own best practices center. Rather than relying on others for solutions or dependent upon federal funds, we identify practices developed by TRIO and GEAR UP programs for their students that work and share that information with others to use in their programs. Programs often do the same categories of activities, but each does them differently as they are contextualized for the students.

This is a list of 10 best practices that are more subtle than your average Josh Bloch Effective Java rule. While Josh Bloch's list is very easy to learn and concerns everyday situations, this list here contains less common situations involving API / SPI design that may have a big effect nontheless. I have encountered…